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From: messy!mo@bellcore.bellcore.com (Michael O'Dell)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Re: Serial port speed
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <1990Aug7.003146.1535@rice.edu>
Date: 6 Aug 90 15:09:28 GMT
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X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 292, message 17
X-Refs:  Original: v9n264, Replies: v9n267 v9n272 v9n277 v9n292

Now John, don't be so cynical.  There are tales from the mists....

For one large procurement Sun was fiercely competing for, there was a
requirement to do 5-bit characters, theoretically so they could do Baudot
interfacing.  The then-current stty interface couldn't do that, but the
dark lore tells of a shell script cobbled-up using dd and adb and other
mystical incantations applied to the live system which directly tickled
the uarts and enable that particularly antique mode.  The demo worked and
the sales force went on to victory.

So, while it ain't a particularly handsome way to get it done, it CAN be
done, given a big enough hammer and if you don't mind the splatter.

	-Mike

PS - yes yes yes, a particuarly base example of Turing Equivalence.  But
then, how many jobs for Turing Machine Programmers do you see in the
newspaper????